Illness/Sickness: Help

My axolotl is swimming around and shaking his head back and forth and hitting into the rocks at the bottom and the side of the tank. I just did a water test and the ph and ammonia are a little high but not very. the water temp is 68. What could be wrong? What should i do?

Oh dear

How high is high, especially for the ammonia. Any ammonia is bad. Did you take nitrite and nitrate readings?

Can you explain more about your setup, too? How big is the tank, what filter do you use? Is your axie on gravel? Sand? What does he eat? How big is he? Was the tank previously Cycled before this happened?

The more info the better, but the main one is that ammonia reading.

the ammonia is bad it was at 7-8 but we just moved him to a bucket and completely cleared out the tank and found a worm. We have large rocks so its not easy to get everything when we clean it everyday. Our filter sucks im pretty sure it does nothing its old and i dont think it works. The tank is 15 gallons. He eats earth worms. 5-6 inches and no the tank was not cycled. Is it alright that we moved him? and does axie poop look like sand?

Yikes!

So he's in a bucket now? Might be a daft question, but did you dechlorinate the water you put him in just now? Fresh, clean water is a good place for him to be.

Yah, it seems rocks are a bit of a nightmare to clean around, have you considered sand instead? Or even a bare tank? Can't really comment on your filter, but you might wanna invest in a new one - i bought an air powered filter very inexpensively which did a brilliant job, and doubled as a play thing for the axie, who liked the bubbles! I guess you need to make this decision quickly to get axie back in the tank (remember to acclimatise him) soon. If he stays in the bucket, you're going to need dechlorinated water to hand to do water changes each day.

With starting again, it's ok to cycle your tank with your axie in, but you need to pay close attention to the water parameters and do water changes with dechlorinated water as necessary. There is tons on cycling on this board, or a good article here.

At least you spotted the problem, hopefully this hasn't been too much of a shock for him.

Yes he is in the bucket now and we knew the water didnt have chlorine before we put him in there. We just put new water in and are planning on leaving the tank bare with no rocks temporarily until we can find something better. So you think its ok to put the axie back in there while its cycling even though we dont have a filter. And we tried the bubble thing and our axie freaked out and hated it so we took it out. Is there anything else you suggest we do?

Dechlorinator will remove chloramines and other substances from your water, too, can I ask how you knew it didn't have chlorine? (I'm curious, not being facetious!) im considering getting a water report from my council...

It is ok to cycle with your axie, but read through that article and browse the forum to get tons of detail on how to manage it that way.

Re: bubbles, I have a smaller one of these and an air stone in Albis tank, but i got a small plastic clamp to set the flow really low, so i get a stream of fine bubbles. At full flow, they nearly leapt out of the tank, but they regularly sit with their tummies in the flow when its set low. Perhaps that might be why?

In terms of what else to suggest, feel free to stick up a photo of your tank etc, we might have ideas!

wow 7-8 ammonia levels are the problem. Don't let it get over 1 ppm. It's fine to stick your axoltol in the tank when it hasn't fully cycled, but do waterchanges. Even if you have to do it every day. Don't worry about ph, as long as it's not off the charts high. You don't have to have a filter, I would recomend having something to add water circulation. i know you said your axolotl hated the airstone, but are you sure it was the airstone? I have a pretty powerful air pump and mine don't seem bothered at all, just stick your stone in a corner or something. It'll help pump oxygen in the water, and move it around, which is good for cycling. Seriously though, test your ammonia every day, and I would do a water change if it's over .5 ppm's. What I do when I'm cycling is if it's any color other than 0 it's time for a waterchange.

We moved him to a big Tupperware thing and he was doing fine we took the water from the bucket so i know it was good. A few hours later I come back and he has a ton of poop in the water so I cleaned it up and when i put more water from the bucket in he started freaking out again. Am i doing something wrong? is there something I need to make sure I do while im putting the water in? I put my hand in both the bucket and the Tupperware before adding it and the temperatures seemed the same to me if not really close they are almost next to each other so they should not be that different. What am I doing wrong?

Moving and the water flow tends to be stressful to them. Cover the tupperware and let him settle down and he should be OK. Try to get your tank set up as soon as possible. As it cycles, you'll need to do water testing and likely water changes every day as the ammonia builds up. Make sure you are also monitoring the nitrite and nitrates as well.

it's good your paying attention to temperature. A small tupperware probably fouls pretty quickly, and even if it's not water parameters that's causing the problem your axolotl could just be freaking out cause it's in a tupperware container. I know my wildtype freaked out when I first put him in new containers. Just make sure the water is dechlorinated, and the temp is the same